Dudley Dursley
Full name: Dudley Vernon Dursley Nicknames: As an adult, Dudley wants to go by Ver or Dursley. Because let's face it, who wants to be known as Dud? This effort is not as successful as he'd like it and because of his attempted abbreviation of his middle name, he often picks up worse nicknames using the sound "ver". Date of birth: June 23, 1980 Blood: Muggle Occupation: Works for the Regulators as a test subject and sometime field investigator. Mother: Petunia Evans Dursley. Father: Vernon Dursley. Siblings: None. The closest that Dudley came was his cousin, Harry, and the pair of them were never close. Other family: Deceased aunt and uncle, Lily and James Potter. Cousin, Harry Potter. Relationships with each: Dudley's relationship with his parents is confusing, to say the least. He always felt - though he could never actually say - that there was something strange about the way they treated Harry and to be honest, as a young child, he thrived on their constant, fawning affection. It wasn't until the summer that they encountered the dementors that Dudley began to understand how wrong they had been to treat his cousin as they had. His mind working slowly, he also realized eventually that he would have liked to be friends with Harry. But by that time, the war was over and the opportunity passed. Home: Dudley lives about two blocks from Scamander Park in a rented room in the house of a little old lady named Sheila Tennant. He lives there for its proximity - the man likes the idea of having some protection from the Regulators - often he can be found simply hanging around the building. It makes him feel safe. Finances: Lower class. Being a test subject doesn't pay well and the difficulty in getting wizarding money exchanged has always proved a hassle in terms of his finances. Dursley often gets cheated, and significantly so. History: Dudley is the cousin of Harry Potter, something of which he has regretted many times throughout his adult life. Other people who have tortured their cousins throughout time immemorial have managed to eventually live it down, reconcile with said person and go on with their lives - the torture of living with Dudley and his family are part of what made Harry who he is, the presumed savior of the Wizarding World. Sometimes, Dudley feels that it's a bit like announcing that you used to beat the shite out of Jesus. His childhood was conflicting at better, damaging at worst. He grew up in Little Whinging, a neat little suburb in Surrey. His father encouraged him to be abusive from a young age, constantly shoving him around as a child and telling him to "toughen up". His mother coaxed and coddled him, calling him pet names, forcefeeding him and insisting that he had no flaws. Even as a kid, Dudley understood that this wasn't the case. This absolute confusion between the two people that his parents believed and wanted him to be resulted in alternating sloth and apathy (as he realized he never could be that person) and his taking on a spoiled, abusive persona himself in his efforts to "be a man". School didn't help, although it did take him away from them for a time. An unattractive, sullen child, he quickly surrounded himself with people who respected him for his sheer physical mass. Not having personality to back it up, Dudley created a gang by threatening to beat them up himself if they didn't join. This was how he met his best friend, Piers Polkiss. The two of them clung together through the remainder of their school years, torturing other children to avoid their own shortcomings. Much of this torture fell on Harry's shoulders - Dudley hated his cousin for being more likeable, more intelligent and more attractive. It stood to reason that at least 2 out of 3 could be bludgeoned out of him. To his disappointment, Harry was sent the letter before this could happen. For years after, Dudley's resentment and jealousy only increased. He was curious about magic but any inquiries in his house resulted in rare punishments and his mother's hysteria. Harry's own willingness to show Dudley anything was in the form of harm to the other child. It wasn't until the summer when they were both fifteen that Dudley fully understood what Harry was going through and how brave his cousin was. The Dementor attack experienced by them both had a massive effect on Dursley's psyche. He began to see that the magical world wasn't something he could escape, whatever his parents' pathetic attempts to cloak it were. Nor was he entirely sure that he wanted to. For all of his fear, he could see that magic had made Harry something more... it had made him a hero. Dudley thought he'd try it for himself. But heroism didn't work in the muggle world. He started making the attempt after he left school and found that he couldn't live the life of a vigilante. He got knocked out trying to save a purse from a snatcher. He shot off his toe by accident trying to stop a gang fight. He was put in jail for two weeks on an obstruction of justice charge when he got in the way of firemen trying to save victims from a burning building. He just simply wasn't any good. And while all of this was going on, the war was raging in the magical world. His induction into it came one rainy night in September of 1998 when Harry came knocking on his flat door and asking him for shelter. Dudley obliged, knowing that there wasn't any blood protection any longer for his cousin. He wanted to tell Harry an apology but in the end, never managed it. Simply opening the door was all he ever gave him. As a result, his flat was attacked by Death Eaters the following year, long after Potter had gone. Dudley barely managed to escape with his life and if, in fact, he had been seen, he likely would not have been given that. So he wandered London until he happened upon a person with a pointy hat and beat the shit out of him until they told him they weren't a wizard. He kept going until he finally found one. When he did, in fact, manage that, they went to the Ministry where he demanded a job and protection. For once in his life, he was able to argue effectively that he had had his life so profoundly impacted by magic that it couldn't be taken from him. It was either the arguments or Harry's influence upon winning the war but the Ministry managed to find Dudley a job. He worked as a filing clerk for assorted Ministry departments for the next six years, a job that he hated but in which he was able to read and learn things about the wizarding world that he hadn't known before. It was there that he learned of the existence of the Regulators and, with the strange fascination for magical creatures that hadn't left him since the Dementors, Dudley decided to go there and ask them to take a job as a test subject. It was an odd thing to ask but he figured that they didn't have many muggles that they could expose to the strange creatures they met or the spells that they were studying. From reading files, he knew that there were objects that had different effects on muggles than the rest of the world and it seemed a better case to devote his life to than the filing of paperwork. Amazingly, he was taken in. Partially because of his connections but also because of the point that he had made - the Regulators did need muggles to use, both for that purpose and to speak to other muggles about things that happened to their families. Once he'd adapted, Dursley was surprisingly good at that, having himself experienced that kind of disruption. On occasion, he goes on those types of call or also as brute force, given that he still has a lot of physical strength and endurance. Marital Status: Single. Strengths: strangely loyal to the rare few who inspire it (note: few), physically strong, curious and is particularly good at dismantling things quickly (though not at putting them together), able to endure much physically and emotionally without breaking, excellent with firearms and brute force. Weaknesses: is not highly literate, takes a while to consider difficult concepts and doesn't typically express himself well, somewhat naive in some respects, tends to have ideas that are a bit "off" what they should be, clumsy, considered physically unattractive by most people. Hobbies: Loves crossword puzzles even though he's really bad at them, taking things apart, walking in rainstorms. He secretly carves wooden toys in his spare time - things like puppets and castles and cars. (Of course, Dudley blows the ones he doesn't like up with firecrackers but hey.) Likes movies, video games, football, hitting people. Sometimes goes to public art gallery openings to jeer people. Once tried to take up genealogy but the results were so horrifying that he stopped within 3 hours of adopting the hobby. Boggart: Dementors reaching for him. He's never forgotten the fear that took hold when he encountered them for the first time. Dursley secretly fears seeing them again and is quite glad that they haven't been seen in a very long time. Appearance: Dudley never lost his baby fat - rather, he added to it. He's short, heavy and looks somewhat idiotic a fair amount of the time. His teeth are horrid and somewhat yellow from his constant coffee drinking and occasional cigarette smoking. He has a couple scars but they're nowhere dramatic nor sexy - there's one on his rear from a long-ago pig tail and a long line across his leg from the time he tried to shave at the age of five. He sometimes wears glasses in an attempt to seem more intelligent and to hide his somewhat narrow eyes. One of his toes is missing from having been shot off. Height: 5'7" Hair: Black Eyes: Brown Style of dress: Unfortunately, Dudley was not born a man of grace or style. This reflects itself in the rumpled clothing he wears, generally creased and often stained with something that he's managed to trip and spill on himself. He often makes the mistake of layering with a sort of desperate belief if he piles more clothes on, that he'll look thinner. This doesn't really work and often, he resembles nothing more than a clothing heap, with scarves and several jumpers over baggy jeans and ratty trainers. PB: Nick Frost Journal: crashtest Category: Characters